Bob Rae calls for full investigation of robocalls; Conservative says he was victim of similar calls

TORONTO — Harassing phone calls made during the last federal election by people claiming to represent Liberal candidates suggest a “pattern of wrongdoing and misbehaviour” that needs to be fully investigated, interim Liberal leader Bob Rae said Saturday.

“Dirty tricks are not permissible at anytime. They are not permissible in election campaigns,” he said in Toronto.

“They are not permissible at any time because they absolutely corrupt democracy. They corrupt free choice and they corrupt people’s ability to make a choice and do the right thing.”

Flanked by supporters and MPs holding placards that read “No Dirty Tricks, Mr. Harper,” Rae said he believes the calls were not the actions of one person, but a concerted effort by a group of individuals targeting Liberal candidates.

“It just isn’t good enough for the Conservatives to say they didn’t know anything about it,” he said. “That defies all credibility. The notion that one person would be responsible for these robocalls.”

On Friday, Postmedia News and the Ottawa Citizen reported to find evidence of a “systematic voter-suppression campaign” against Liberals in tight ridings during last May’s federal election.

Automated messages reportedly told voters that their polling stations had been changed or directed them to non-existent stations.

The campaign also allegedly consisted of harassing phone calls targeting Liberal voters in 14 ridings — the majority of which were in southern Ontario.

Liberal supporters say the calls usually came late at night or early in the morning from people claiming to represent the local Liberal candidate.

Calls also were placed to voters with Jewish-sounding names during the Saturday Sabbath and in one riding with a South Asian candidate, voters received phone calls from someone who appeared to be imitating a Pakistani accent.

Those who received the calls say they got them repeatedly and that the person on the other line spoke to them rudely.

Rae says the party received numerous calls Saturday about these calls and have identified at least 27 that were targeted during the May election.

He urged anyone — including Prime Minster Stephen Harper — to come forward with information if they have it as the RCMP and Elections Canada continue with their probe into these reports.

Rae said he has no doubt these “dirty tricks” led to Liberal candidates losing their seats in certain ridings.

On Friday, Rae sent a letter to House of Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer, asking him to allow an emergency debate on the matter when Parliament resumes Monday.

Interim federal NDP leader Nycole Turmel said these types of tactics hurt voter turnout and the democratic process in general.

“It is really sad for the election process,” she said in Toronto. “This doesn’t help people who don’t vote, to come back and believe in the election process.”

But Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro on Saturday said his party also was on the receiving end of such phone calls.

“My own campaign in Peterborough (Ont.) was the victim of dirty tricks phone calls, with Conservative supporters harassed by late-night abusive calls, and our party condemns these acts,”he said in a release.

“The Conservative party is calling on anyone with any information about harassing calls or calls giving inaccurate poll information to come clean immediately and hand it over to Elections Canada,” Del Mastro said.

“We call on Elections Canada to investigate and get to the bottom of this as quickly as possible so the truth is known,”he said.

Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath called the calls a “shameful” tactic that people would expect in the U.S. but not in Canadian politics.

“This is not the way to do politics . . . It’s about how do you trick somebody into doing something that will prevent them from voting,” she said at a meeting with the Ontario NDP provincial council. “If that is not an absolute insult to the ideal of democracy — I don’t know what is.”

On Friday, a young Conservative staffer reportedly resigned amid the growing scandal.

It’s unclear what role, if any, Micheal Sona, 23, may have played in this robocall ordeal.

Under the Elections Act, it is illegal to tell voters to go to a wrong or non-existent polling station.

A spokesperson for the Conservatives this week distanced the Tories from the scandal, saying that whoever initiated it did so alone.